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GM

The Sith Eternal assemble their fleet of planet-killing Star Destroyers in the black skies of Exegol, joined now by the forces of the First Order under Allegiant General Pryde.

Meanwhile, the Resistance plan an assault on Exegol but unless they can muster the forces of the free galaxy it is doomed to failure.

Preventing them is Ghidrah, a secret weapon of the First Order, a monstrous computer that can block communications between star systems.

But a Resistance team has retrieved the location of a vulnerable Ghidrah node from Jakku and are now on their way to capture or destroy it.

Your team.

***

The blue tunnel of hyperspace.

Through it zooms the Bargon Flit, a heavily modified Corellian light freighter in service to the Resistance.

Its destination, GH-531, the nearest Ghidrah node.

In the cockpit, Lieutenant Bek sits in one of four red racing seats as 2BB-2 rolls in with a tweedle-beep.

The Mon Calamari officer turns and straightens his brown tunic.

"Good," He says, "they need the rest. Jakku was harder work than we'd hoped but all-in-all a great success."

A slight shudder passes through the hull. Bek returns to the readouts.

"The Unknown Regions are treacherous, my friend, but the Force is with us. The Chiss say that is only way to navigate out here."

Something else is on Bek's mind though. A different doubt.

"This could all be for nothing, Toobee. We don't even know if the Millennium Falcon has found the Wayfinder.

"I wish we could contact base. What do you think? Should we risk it?" He asks the droid.

The rest of the team power-nap in the darkened rec-room. Lights blink on the Auto-chef and a game of Dejarik glows on the table, mid-play. It looks like a stalemate.

The ship is a comfy 21 degrees. The drive purrs smoothily, finely tuned.

But the sleeping forms seem troubled.

A shift in the fabric of the universe, sensed by the subconscious of those not even attuned to the Force. It is like the ever-present Light and Dark are drawing back, leaving a void. But the void is only a sign of the impending tsunami.

[Amos, J.B., Jix, Preach, Sirra and Winta: What is their worst nightmare? It might be memories from their past, or a phobia, etc. Describe the nightmare in your next post. 2BB-2 is off the hook!]

[An important post regarding changes to characters.

Please Read]

Preach

Never a still sleeper, and never a person who stayed asleep long. Old was probably the primary reason most of the time. But not this particular night. It was a familiar memory, whether or not it was actually his, he couldn't really answer.

It started the same, he was sleeping. Why did a nightmare always start when he was sleeping? He awoke to fire, it was everywhere. He couldn't see because of all the smoke ash and fire. It was the Grand Temple, it was coming down around him. He couldn't do anything other than run, and he couldn't see where to run.

Being helpless might be the worst part of the nightmare to many people, but not for Preach. He wasn't able to help people. He couldn't use the Force for sight. He couldn't sense anyone, except those who were dying horribly around him. Yet he lived. That was the worst feeling of them all. It brought tears to streak his face. He didn't fear dying, he knew enough of the force that his fate wasn't an issue. But the pain of loss, the innocent lives, torn from his mind, left him reeling.

Sirra

Sirra usually slept still and silent. Whatever horrors occupied the mind within as she slept, they failed to show on the body without. This night was not ‘usually’. She thrashed, she tensed, she sweated.

Over and over again, she paused, took aim, and fired. Over and over again the face revealed in each dying target was someone she knew. Someone she cared about. Right now, even though she had not touched them, she was seeing her current companions. She wasn’t supposed to care. But she did.

Field after field, high buildings on populated worlds, open fields on lightly colonized planets, everywhere.

Faces. Every target had a face. All of them. A sea of faces. People.

Why did they have to be people instead of nameless corpses?

And then an oncoming force pike to the head and blinding pain - and the worst nightmare of all, perhaps. She still lived. She still lived with no cause, no core, no driving passion. Why the rescue? Why couldn’t the rebellion just let her remain one more faceless corpse, a by-blow of the First Order, littering the field. She felt the core of simmering anger tamped down and redirected as much at herself as at anyone else.

What demon had cursed her now with a conscience, and set it free to savage herself?

2BB-2

The droid pondered and cogitated the question. On the one hand, what they had was golden, utterly vital to the Resistance effort, and if they failed, was the possibility of a second team worth breaking comm silence now?

The droid trilled a negative to his Mon Cal fellow-traveller. Ghidrah itself was the problem: They had the shape of the network, but not the limits of its grasp. If their transmission was detected and parsed, the data they would be sending was enough to put their enemies on maximum alert, in particular at the node they were targeting. Even if it got through and backup sent, the act of calling for it could mean sending them to certain doom and guaranteed failure.

Stealth was their ally, and stealth mandated silence. A dead-man-switch broadcast if the operation failed was probably the way to go, because at that point their enemies couldn’t be more alerted than they would be at that point, and a forlorn hope desperation move was all the resistance could muster in either case. Keeping the reasoning at an organic-comprehensible pace, 2BB-2 relayed that to Lieutenant Bek.

Amos

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It started like it always did, with fire.

The sounds of the screaming echoed in the distance, barely heard above the roar of the flames as they scorched his skin. Pushing the burning beam off of himself, Amos staggered to his feet amidst the devastation of the town that he had sworn to protect. A town that had had hellfire rained down upon it for daring to refuse to bow down and give in tithe most of their hard earned gains.

Grimacing, he moved past the charred body of Mr. Weller, the town barkeep as he lay on the sidewalk with tiny flames dancing on his corpse.

"Jenny!" he screamed out harshly with his seared lungs. "William!"

It was a true hellscape that he staggered through as Amos headed toward the modest ranch on the outskirts of town that had been the home where he and his Jenny were raising their boy. More vacant eyed stares from the dead greeted him as he started to run, stumbling a bit before catching his stride and his duster flaring out behind him.

JENNY! WILLIAM!" he screamed again, smashing open the half broken door to his house to find everything in disarray, smashed. His dog, Seymour, was lying dead at the feet of....of....

"No...Please no...." came his whispered plea.

There on the floor with a plasma blast burnt right through her stomach lay his Jenny. The sweet faced lass who had given him her heart and trust.

Amos tore through the rest of the house, looking for their son but to no avail. There was no sign of him. There never would be again.

He collapsed to his knees beside her and gathered her up in his arms, rocking and screaming to the heavens.

Jelly Bean
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She ran. She was always running. The Struss gang was closing on her. She could hear their swoop bikes a block away now. She needed to get off the main street to hide. She looked to her left, down the alley. It seemed the only path left open for her to run. And so she did. she weaved her way around the garbage and debris. The towering buildings of Nar'Shadaa kept her in deep shadows, hidden from the powerful lights of the First Order's searching Destroyers. Turning a another corner she saw that this new alley was not much wider than an arm's width across. If she got caught in here she knew she was dead. That was what it was always about though, wasn't it? Trying not to get dead. The sounds of alarms blaring in the distance behind her meant that the Zygarrian hunters had picked up her trail again. They were closing in on her...

Without further thought she raced down the alley, as fast as her little legs would take her. The further she ran the faster the towering buildings resolved themselves into stark and jagged sandstone cliffs rising up on either side, with her racing on foot through the narrow canyon. She could feel the oppressive heat, even at night. The winds were usually very still on the Mos'asheti plains this time of year. But she didn't know that then, only that it was hot and there was no wind blowing down the canyon in which her village had been built. She was almost home though. If she got home to where she was loved then everything would be okay. She would be safe and all her fears would fade away. Then she heard the screech of a Shanindago, a ravenous flying reptilian raptor on Nal'Hutta. That sound always made her think of the Lyleks on Ryloth... but she wasn't on Ryloth now, was she? She was in the swamps of Nal'Hutta, and in fact she was standing before the fortress of Tenga the Hutt. His guards were already advancing on her. What was that droning sound? She looked up and she could see the massive triangular shapes of three First order Destroyers flying a search pattern low across the hazy sky. Powerful search lights lit of whole swaths of the fetid smelling swamps. She had to run... RUN... She had to find her mother and her father... RUN!

Blindly, madly, she jumped off the raised platform into the swampy marsh bog and tried as hard as she could to slog her way deeper into the darkness, away from the Zygarrians behind her, Teng's forces in front of her and the First Order searching for her from above. Suddenly something wrapped around her ankle and entwined it's way up her leg to her thigh and then it yanked her under...

She fell into the sand, tumbling down a steep dune that rested in the shadow of an old Imperial Star Destroyer. Rolling and tumbling, out of control, unable to slow her falling slide, she felt as helpless as she always felt. Admitting that to herself, her struggle ceased, and she stopped tumbling. Now she lay on her back, smelling of rotted swamp muck that had just been dredged in the burning hot sands of Jakku. A grim meal for those creatures flying in circles above her. Then she remembered that her new friends were counting on her. They depended on her. Their lives were just as much her responsibility as was her life to them. Friends? Is that what they were? She wasn't sure she ever had friends before. Friendly yes, but always wary. That's not friends. So is this what it felt like. To worry about them first before yourself when danger was at hand.

That screech again, but this time they were the metal shearing ripper raptors. Exhausted and scared, she rolled over and pushed herself up off of the sand, her footing giving way once or twice more before she could get upright. But then, the Ripper Raptors had realized that she wasn't carrion and now the hunt was on. the first few made their menacing dives to impale her with their talons in the hopes of dragging her back up with them. Run.... RUN!

Down the dune she slipped and and slid, as though she were sliding on a sand wave. She couldn't find her friends. Were they already dead? Had she failed them? Running was all she knew. And she tumbled some more. Any time she had footing she ran, trying to keep from becoming a predictable meal for the raptors. She forced herself to drop when the first of them dove at her, its talons grasping at the flesh of her shoulders and back, even hopeful top grasp one of her lekku. And then there was blaster fire and the fierce birds screeched and squealed in those high pitched shrieks. She looked skyward, trying to shield her eyes from the glaring sun of Jakku, but it wasn't Jakku. That was the sun of her home world. That was Ryl in the sky and there were four First Order Transport ships dropping fast from altitude. The shadow of a Heavy Cruiser was a shadow of darkness against the bright sky. Shocktroopers? On Ryloth? What was the First Order doing here. She spun around, to find herself outside her small hovel of a home, an abandoned bath house in an abandoned village. How could they have followed her? Jahn? She saw him, at then entrance to the home. He had a blaster pistol and he was trading fire with the troopers, but they were advancing. She reached for her blaster, but it her holster was empty. How could she have gone anywhere without her blaster? She took off at a sprint. She build was great for dancing and gymnastic types of things but no so much for flat out running. In fact, it felt like she couldn't get there at all. She ran, yelling at him, pleading with him to take cover. Such a stubborn man. He gave her that damned nickname and kept calling her Jelly bean until she fell in love with him. It was such an alien emotion to her after last feeling it as a child. Everything else in between that was faked emotion that earned the Hutt more money, and kept her alive for another day. 'Please... Get out of there,' she yelled. But he waved her away as he fired, yelling the same thing at her it seemed. And then there was an explosion... But that's not how it happened. Yes, there was an explosion... Yes, he made her leave to buy her time for an escape. Yes, he sacrificed himself because he loved her. And all she could do was run... RUN!

That's all she ever did in her life, even when she was standing still, she was running away from something in her mind and in her heart.

When the remaining trooper turned their attention to her, she turned and ran again. She could hear the Swoop bikes, she could hear Tenga's laughter as she was whipped for asking questions of one of her pilots on that last trip to Geral. Not her place. A schutta's place was to dance and to... She hated that word... She ran toward Jahn, Colonel Maljahn Relnard of the First Order. He was twice her age, and destiny two of the most unlikely people ever to fall in love in each other's path... and then rip them apart. Was Destiny really that cruel?

She saw the stun rings pass overhead, and she ducked low, leaving behind the shattered remnants of the only real relationship she had ever known, it is only lasted a few months. Now the Zygarrians were chasing her but that never happened. She tried running for the canyon where the old starlight freighter was hidden when she and Jahn made it back to her home world. Except that, the Zygarrians were never part of this. The Zygarrians were the ones who abducted her from her family on Ryloth when she was six.

She tripped and fell and scrapped her arms and lekku as she tumbled. But the Zygarrian slavers were still coming. She cried out for her mother and her own voice echoed in the canyon where her village was built to endure the harsh elements of Ryloth. Her family, her people weren't wealthy enough to live very close to the equator and the only band of forest that encircled the planet. She got up again, her breathing ragged, and her heart was racing. She was so close to her village now, but when the next stun blast went over her, she knew she wasn't close enough. Her mother and father would protect her. If only she could get to them in time. And she Ran!

Just ahead of her, she saw the cliff dwellings on the villages built into the shelf that overhung the and canyon floor, but the slavers were so close now. One had fired the plasma net to try and capture her and she got past a rock outcropping just in time. She could hear their speeders up higher, keeping track of her, like drones, hoping to plink her, but the canyon had too many twists and turns. The air was so still, and heavy and those speeders sounded a lot like the Struss Gang swoop bikes.

She just kept running and there, people from her village stared to come out of their shelters to see what was causing all the noise. She started hollering as loud as her little winded body would allow her as she ran toward them, but it seemed like it was taking forever to close he distance. And then she saw her mother and her father. Her mother held out her arms, tears streaming down her face... She watched as her father seized her mother as she tried to run to her daughter. Maybe because it was too dangerous. Maybe that was it. The Zygarrians were almost within reach to just grab her, but she made those last few diving steps into the arms of her waiting father. He caught her and spun her about. She had barely made it back home... Her father held her fast by the wrist as he took a defiant step toward the heavily armed Zygarrians. She stared with as much defiance as she could muster, but her exhaustion and fear won out and she half collapsed as her father dragged her along with him to face down the slaver leader.

'Why is she back here? WE had a deal! You said if we gave her to you, you would leave the rest of us in peace'

She could hear her mother sob.

'Don't push your luck Ryllian. We still have a deal, she slipped her transport harness and ran. Now... Turn the Lethan over and we will be on our way... Or, perhaps we should take her from you and all the women and children of your village as well!'

She could hear her mother cry out but all of that sounded faint and distant as the little six year old girl stared up at her father with pleading eyes. Her little lekku fluttered. Tears streamed down her face. He spoke to her in words she tried to forget everyday since then.

"You are what you are,' he told his daughter. 'A bad omen. A curse upon our village. When you are gone, perhaps the Goddess will bless us and the winds will fill our canyon again... You must go... You only bring sorrow and grief with you... So take these things and never come back!'

Her father swung the little girl by the wrist, tossing her like a rag doll toward the Zygarrian Slavers. The menacing man reached out to grab her, 'Come little schutta... no biting this time,' he hissed. She hated that word. Instinctively she twisted from his grasp and her hand fell to her hip to grasp the cylindrical hilt. It was cool to the touch, and the ridged body of the sleek and elegant weapon was made of the horn of the Doashim Beast, it's ridges spiraled around from one end to the other. No one would ever hurt her again. No one would ever take her from those she loved again. No one would ever abandon her and leave her alone again. She stilled her mind, and balanced her emotions with logic, and pressed the button.

Nothing happened, and the Zygarrian laughed at her as he grabbed by the wrist, hefting her little body off the ground. The small six year old girl kicked and flailed as she screamed. She even tried to entangle to wrist of the Slaver with her lekku, an instinctive reaction born of panic and fear. Her mother cried. Her father dragged her mother away quite like the first time several hours before when he first struck the deal to rid the village of a genetic misfit that her people saw as a sign of ill fate. The thugs fired the stun gun on her and the sliver of rock she had been holding slipped from her fingers as her body went limp.




Jelly Bean screamed aloud in her bunk as she suddenly flailed about herself to break the grip of a menace that was 16 years in her past. Her breathing was ragged and her skin felt flush, but Twi'leks didn't sweat. She sat upright in the bunk, eyes darting about herself. She had had parts of this dream for many years, but never like this. So jumbled, so... so mixed up... and never had she remembered the that ending, that was actually the beginning...

JB cried, and tears flowed. What was with that? Water was one of the most precious things to the Ryllian people and tears were not a common thing among them. Sadness, yes, but tears pushed at ages of evolution. The Twi'lek tears ducts secreted only enough to wet their eyes against the harsh sand and dust of their world. But Jelly Bean had so much emotion bottled up inside that nothing would hold it back after crossing the veil had brought those memories back to her in the form of her worst nightmares all woven together.

Silently, with the practiced grace of a dancer, she slid out of the bunk and padded barefoot to her kitbag. She wiped her eyes, even pausing a moment to regard the sheen of the wetness on her fingers in the dim light of the small room. Deft hands opened the kitbag and she drew out her most prized possession, a box made of polymer metal, wrapped in a rag of cloth. She then walked out into the central hub and slid into the booth seat at the Djarik table. She stared at the wrapped box for a bit. She knew she had to try again. The dream was hard, but it was also a message. She hoped she had enough time. She hoped she could finally put the past into perspective now that she had allowed herself to remember it. Could she take that step forward and become the person that Maz Kanata said she was destined to become?

(OOC: I hope you enjoyed it... anyone is welcome to join her if they want)

Jix

He turns to fire, faceless shapes in the tunnels, always pursuing, relentless. He has felt so many of the Hive die and in each death he is diminished further. It will be his turn before long and maybe that is a better alternative. He could just stop and surrender. He knows that he has no chance of survival. Others have tried that route and still been exterminated.

Exterminated.

That is the right word as this slaughter is not driven by a need to win, a need to take the land, to take captives, to gain information. It is extermination. But why?

Whilst his mind wrestles to gain some insight, some understanding, his body continues to fight on auto pilot. See shape, raise weapon, fire, continue running. See shape, raise weapon, fire, continue running.

All the time the isolation increases and he grows less. The Hive is growing small. Already he feels alone, desperately clinging the the diminishing consciousnesses around him, trying to focus on the positive, trying not to be aware of the growing void. He cries out in desperation and it wakes him.

He lies unmoving, listening. He is aware of other around him.. but he is more aware of how absolutely alone he is now.

GM

Lieutenant Bek nods, listening to the BB-unit.

"You're right, of course." He agrees, sucking in a deep breath.

There's another shudder through the hull. Ominous.

Bek is a Mon Calamari, an advanced, starfaring species. Mon Cala opposed the old Emperor and might have been destroyed during the Galactic Civil War if not for the Empire being so divided, so corrupt. It could not destroy what it could exploit.

The First Order is different. It grew out of a hardcore of Imperial extremists, true believers, human supremacists. They look at the species of the Galaxy and they see nature trying to emulate one ideal form, the human. The First Order look at the Mon Calamari and see a humanoid, a pretender, a fake, an inferior.

The First Order would see all non-human species driven to extinction. Yet even that seems like a more appealing fate than what the Sith Eternal promise. All living things debased, consumed by cruelty, hatred and fear, constantly feeding on themselves until nothing remains. An endless darkness.

The Empire was tyrannical. The First Order are extremists. The Sith Eternal are utterly insane and somewhere out there in the void they are assembling a fleet of thousands of Death Star Destroyers.

Lieutenant Bek grumbles at his own black mood. What does he know anyway!? He basically works in logistics.

"Well don't worry, my friend." He says to 2BB-2, "Win or lose, I don't think the bad guys have anything against droids, so you should be fine!"

He glances at the droid, sensing disapprobation.

"Alright, when we win, what do you plan to do? I've always wanted to take a deep water tour of Naboo's interior."

[I'll progress the rest of the team after Winta's nightmare.]

Winta

She was in the watery field. The sticky, sucking, mud at the bottom making each step a difficult task of extracting a foot and setting it down within the range of the other. And then repeat with the other foot.

But at the moment she was under water, her feet held firm. She forced her head to the surface and took deep gasping breaths.

It was coming ...

The monster was coming ...

She could hear it crash through the trees ...

She tried to hurry away, but only succeeded in overbalancing, both her feet firmly held in the mud.
Her arms were thrust into the mud.
It took effort not to panic, to free her arms, to get her head above the water again.

It was here!

"I am not the girl you are looking for!" she used the force against the monster.
It turned its metal body in her direction, her force of will apparently having had no effect.

She was doomed.

She knew it was about to fire again and she hurled herself to the side. Her feet continued to hold her fast and the distance traveled was negligible. But once more she was under water and with her hands in the mud.

She extracted her hands from the mud and forced her head to the surface...

And the nightmare repeated.

2BB-2

That was a bit of a thorny question for the droid, with almost the entirety of his kind assembled as products to fulfil a given purpose, to be property and to expect to be property. It wasn't that treatment under the First Order was going to be ostensibly better or worse compared to other non-humans, organic or inorganic, it was that the First Order intended that to be the default state for everyone, even their own kind. An army of stolen, indoctrinated children, workers living in fear of the looming triangular shadows overhead, everyone under control, doing what they were told. Just like the basest and most menial droids.

What, then, for a Droid free to choose their own path once the Resistance was no longer needed? He'd gotten a taste for the fight for freedom, and with the New Republic central institutions reduced to cinders, there was going to be restructuring and rebuilding. Droids weren't comfortable not fulfilling a purpose, so perhaps rolling into politics, ensuring Droidkind did not default to second-class citizenry. Perhaps putting his unique skillset to use towards that end. Going somewhere to sightsee was fine, fitting and worthy, sure, but short of reprogramming into a travelogue bot, it wasn't a purpose he'd choose to aspire to.

Sirra walked in, looking flushed and having a distant thousand yard stare.

She was less wondering who she might become as who she was. A killing machine? A destroyer? A traitor? Who had she betrayed? A believer? A believer in what?

After a bit, she shook her head and focused her eyes on the Twi’lek.

“Morning.”

She said in a raw voice.

GM

Morning, evening, it's all the same in hyperspace. That's part of the joke. Still, the team have come so many light years together, by now they're sharing the same body clock.

Sirra walks over to the Auto-chef, J.B. sat illuminated by the game of space chess. The others stir.

You feel groggily aware of each others' nightmares, as if they were all playing at the same time.

The Auto-chef sputters.

Instead of dark Spiran caf, a red substance leaks out, thick ectoplasmic strands that pulse with a power from beyond.

The hull shakes and suddenly the walls of the rec-room rip apart, vapourised and you find yourselves hurtling into a spiral of this phantom energy, chased by cackling laughter of malicious glee.

The energy coalesces into a searing beam and erupts, blasting through you, triggering some catastrophic reaction in the Force binding your living being. All your potential is released in an instant like a nova.

Merged with the beam, through cold space you're fired and into the molten core of a planet. Its surface frigid, mountainous but dotted by walled cities, hiding subterranean metroplexes.

The phantom energy, the planet killer, blows out the heart of the world through a terrible exit wound and seconds later the world buckles and shatters. Fire and heat flare out into space and millions of voices cry out in terror and are suddenly silenced.

Darkness now. Cold. Water echoes like in a sea cave. In the darkness a white light. It becomes a figure, a slight woman, pale and dark-haired in a white dress and veil.

She turns to you. Pretty. You recognise her face but can't match it to a name. Who is she? She looks at you, there is fear but confidence too, a vast well of strength.

"You are our only hope." She whispers to you earnestly.

Something inside you is freed or reworked or both. You are changed. You feel like you have died and live again.

Ajan Kloss. The Resistance base, spread thinly through the jungle and into a cavern. Maz Kanata stands solemnly beside a bed where a figure lies in a silver shroud. Rose and Artoo are nearby, grieving.

Up up, through a natural hole in the roof of the cavern and into the windswept highlands.

The sheltered side of a rocky outcrop. A well-made campfire crackles, with some succulent creature roasting on a spit. Something or someone's dinner.

You feel a presence, feral, musty like a wild animal. Behind you. You turn to see a mighty beast, no a person, tusked, long grizzled fur, long scarred snout. A Whiphid, torso bared, aiming a massive wooden bow at you. The edge of the flint arrowhead gleams.

"So you finally found me." He says in a deep baritone voice.

He huffs, lowering his bow. Of course you did. "When you're ready to begin again," he says, "I'll be here.

"But right now, you must end this madness."

The Whiphid picks up a folded pile of clothes. Ragged brown and biege robes.

"And I'd better get dressed."

He slips a straw non la onto his head.

***

A crude, artificial wail.

You Awaken with a jolt in the rec-room, where your team had settled in for a power nap. Not so comfy that you'd fall into a deep sleep but better than your head lolling in the cockpit.

The smoke alarm is sounding and you might be alarmed at the coils of smoke hanging in the air, until you smell it.

Roast meat. It smells good. Real. Wholesome.

2BB-2 rolls into the room on high alert, CryoBan projector armed. However, the old adage 'Where there is smoke there is fire' appears to be false on this occasion.

Preach

The nightmare had already disturbed his fragile sleep. Then whatever it was that just happened had made it worse. Then smoke, which caused the old man to sit bolt up right. The bunk had not been made for that, so just as quickly Preach was lying back down with a growing lump on his forehead.

The next time he moved was with care, trying to stay low to avoid the excess smoke from the fire. His eyes were blurry from the bonk on his head so it took him a few minutes to realize that it was from a cooking fire, and that it smelled good.

His stomach spoke before he did, growing from his four legged position like some weird unicorn because of the growing lump.

He laughed lightly as he sat back on his haunches. At least it wasn't death staring them in the face as it had during the sleep.

Sirra

She jolted back awake from the second nightmare with a start, and unthinking actually yelled, more reaction than anything else.

“Damn it! I am nobody’s hope! You need to get yourself a better class of hero.”

Then realized she was indeed awake and looked down at her cup to see if there was any caff in it.

2BB-2

Fire on a spaceship was no joke, leading to some frantic thermal scanning from the Droid. Anything less would not be diligent, and might well endanger his friends, the mission and thus the galaxy.

Winta

She sat bolt upright and awake. She tried to get her thoughts aligned about what had just happened, what was nightmare, what was dream, and what might possibly have been real.

"Did anyone else have a strange dream or vision?" she asked, looking around her companions.

GM

The small vent opens on the front of 2BB-2's head dome, sampling the air as he scans with his optic sensors.

No fire. There is hot wood smoke lingering in the room, but where it, the wood and the combustion came from, he cannot tell.

Jix

He still tense, his body ready to fight and then somehow becomes part of a planet's destruction. He feels the cries, feels the terror, the desperation and that takes him back emotionally into his own nightmare. The empty hollowness of it is almost overwhelming, swamping the details that follow, the offer of hope that he does not believe in, at least for him.

The transition into a waking state is not quick. Mostly it is denial, not wanting to confront that bleak reality. Another part is not wanting to confront what might be another awful reality, yes, someone else's but no less awful.

Then he becomes aware of that scent of smoke, of cooking food.. but he is in the ship? Isn't he? Now he has to confirm the reality, awful or otherwise. His eyes show him what he believes is his reality but his nose still places him in the nightmare. But is it a nightmare?

He hears Winta's query but can only manage to croak out one word.

"Yes."

It is said quietly, tentatively and he is not sure he has actually spoken.

Amos

Heavy eyelids blinked open and shut a few times as Amos ran his hand over his face, trying to wipe away the remnants of dreams too disturbing to bring into the light of day...so to speak that is.

"What the hell...." he muttered, smelling the smoke in the air. It didn't have that acrid tang of electrical wiring that would indicate damage.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bunk and sat up. Getting to his feet, he stumbled out to find out what was going on.

Jelly Bean
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Jelly Bean lay there, staring upwards at the overhead, or what some might call a ceiling. But to the ship savvy, it was an overhead, just like the floor was a deck, and the vertical walls were bulkheads. Everything had a name as though it were part of a lifestyle different from those who stared up through atmo at the stars. She came to live a new life at a very young age, sometimes on a rock and sometimes in the void. At least when she was in the void, traveling from Nar'Shadda or Nal Hutta as property of Tenga the Hutt, she could most clearly visualize what the dream of freedom should feel like to her soul.

She lay there for several long moments, even as others stirred. She felt something about them all, what they felt... and that meant they probably felt or even 'experienced' what she was going through in the nightmare. It was something she had never fully shared, not even with Jahn nor with Maz. Not completely. And there were parts she had forgotten, or had lied to herself for so long that her own truth felt more real. But now it the truth of how she came to be a salve was laid bare before everyone on her team, just like she could still feel their grief and loss.

But what of the end, after she thought she had awakened, hearing, seeing, smelling, feeling a reality where a Jedi Master found them. Or, had their shared experience found him? It didn't make sense to her, but one thing stood out with a lasting impression. It felt like a validation of the sense she had to try again to take that next step... that last step... to put aside her fear of failure... to find that balance in her emotions...

When you're ready to begin again... I'll be here.

That was the push she needed to solidify her resolve. She dreamed she had already started again... but then the dream revealed that it still held her in thrall. And doubt wanted to creep in, but the Master's words renewed her focus.

She said nothing to anyone else. She simply found her pack and dug through it to retrieve the cloth wrapped box. She took her prized treasure box to the D'Jarik table and seated herself. She began to unwrap the box. The wrapping was a tattered remnant of a teal uniform that included part of the collar and sleeve, a First Order Uniform that had rank insignia for a Colonel. Not a navy uniform, and not a navy rank, but more like a special warfare unit officer (for anyone who might have seen such a uniform before). With a reverence she held the tattered scrap of uniform for a moment, kissed it, then set it aside. She opened the box and took out a tray that help some Huttese currency, some body adornment jewelry that anyone who had ever seen the Twi'lek dancers of the Hutts. it was mostly costume grade and probably worthless. She set that aside to reveal a lightsaber whose hilt might be more fitted for a child's hand, or one that could only be wielded single handed. A shoto saber. She left that where it was, and lifted out the fabric bag that was next to it, She set the bag in front of herself on the table as she cleared some space to open the bag. Carefully she withdrew parts and pieces, mostly of a cylindrical nature. There were a couple thermal coupler rings, a collimated plasma emitter, a tube made of some creature's horn that had a slight curve to it, a control interface module, a few other parts, and a highly polished and lustrous crystal that appeared very smooth and shaped vaguely like a large serpent's scale. All of these pieces were laid out upon the fabric bag before her. Not once had she looked up at any of the others in the small, confined space that served as lounge area. Finally she looked up at any of the other team mates, more to take note of what they were doing, before she set out to finish what she had started 4 years ago...

GM

The recirculator soon whisks away the smoke and the alarm peeters out, remaining as a warning light in the cockpit somewhere until it's manually over-ridden.

A smell, or the memory of a smell remains. A camp-fire in the jungle highlands of Ajan Kloss. A brawny, scarred Whiphid with grizzled fur. Who is he? Had he come to Ajan Kloss to find the Resistance base or had Leia chose Ajan Kloss as the base to find him?

And Leia...!?

Worse, what of the nightmares?

Questions might hang in the air longer than the smoke.

A Force vision, maybe more than a vision, shared by everyone in the team except for 2BB-2.

By now you're all awake and together in the rec-room. J.B. at the holotable with her lightsaber pieces, Sirra at the Auto-chef pouring herself a cup of caf. Amos and Jix disorientated. Preach nursing a lump on his head. Winta staying focused and working to understand what has happened. 2BB-2 is joined suddenly by Lieutenant Bek.

Your commanding officer hurries through the door, eyes rolling in agitation. You hadn't sensed his presence during the nightmares but that's not to say he hadn't felt something. No-one has ever classed Amos and Jix as Force Sensitive either but the lines have blurred. The Cosmic Force is changing in a way it hasn't done for ten thousand years.

"Something terrible has happened!" Bek declares in his phlegmy voice.

His rubbery fingers press buttons on the buzz box, tuning in.

"I had a bad feeling that I should scan hypercomms." He says, pausing to catch his breath, "It's Ghidrah...."

A sinister voice creeps, distorted from the speakers.

The Resistance is dead. The Sith flame will burn. All worlds surrender or die. The Final Order begins.

It repeats in Huttese then other languages.

Bek looks around.

"It's flooded every frequency. The enemy are making their move."

Sirra
She speaks up in a level and even tone.

“Resistance isn’t dead. I don’t know about being a hero. I’m not, not even close. But I do know how to resist. I don’t know how to quit. I don’t know how to surrender and I don’t know how to die. If the Sith wish to burn, then I’m all too happy to accommodate them.”

She looks around at the rest.

“And I think between all of us we have new reservoirs of stubborn they have yet to plumb. I am not about to unbend my knee to one tyranny to merely exchange it for another. I for one vote that we shove that message right back down their throats. I believe we had a job to do?”

Jix

He raises his head as Bek enters and Sirra speaks and then he adds his own declaration, although it is given with less determination and more resignation.

"This time I will fight.. or die trying."

2BB-2

A defiant chirp from the definitely-not-dead Droid. The meaning was clear, in the context that they of the Resistance were still very much at large and active.

Namely, 'Everything in that broadcast is wrong'.